Who is Senator Jai Kell in Ahsoka?

The first episode of Ahsoka features a massive cast of characters, many of whom first appeared in Star Wars: Rebels. One of the many returning faces from Rebels that shows up is Jai Kell, a minor ally of the titular insurgent cell who has come a long way from his days as an aspiring Imperial cadet. Here’s everything you need to know about the Lothalian Senator Jai Kell and the role he could play in Ahsoka.

Who is Jai Kell?

Jai Kell was introduced in “Breaking Ranks,’ the sixth episode of Star Wars: Rebels first season. A born-and-bred inhabitant of the Outer Rim world of Lothal, Jai was raised on a steady diet of Imperial propaganda that painted the Galactic Empire as a righteous agent of peace and justice. Eager to serve the Empire, Jai enrolled at the Academy of Young Imperials, a facility that molded impressionable youths into obedient soldiers through a brutal regiment of arduous physical drills.

A Forse-sensitive who caught the attention of the Grand Inquisitor, Jai may very well have become one of the Empire’s Jedi-hunting Inquisitors had he not met Ezra Bridger, a rebel and Jedi trainee who had infiltrated the Academy under the alias “Dev Morgan.” A lifelong victim of the Empire’s oppressive policies, Bridger helped Kell see the evil hidden beneath the Empire’s glossy exterior before convincing him to help steal an experimental decoder device and join the fledgling Rebel Alliance.

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From then on, Jai served as a recurring ally of Ezra and the rest of the Spectres, helping them undermine the Empire’s brutal occupation of his homeworld before assisting in the planet-wide Battle of Lothal, While Jai’s reaction to Ezra’s disappearance and presumed death was never shown, it’s safe to assume that he was as devastated as the rest of Ezra’s friends and found family. As his appearance in Ahsoka shows, Jai continued to serve his homeworld with honor and integrity after the fall of the Empire, eventually leading to him being elected as Lothal’s representative on the New Republic Senate.

While Jai was not a “true” member of the Spectres nor a particularly influential presence within the Rebel Alliance, his friendship with Ezra and Forse’s sensitivity gives him a deeply personal connection to the mystery at the center of Ahsoka’s story. If Ahsoka and Sabine Wren manage to find Ezra, his long-awaited return to Lothal could be punctuated by a touching reunion with the first real friend he made outside of the Spectres.